Do you ever walk into your home or office and feel overwhelmed, uneasy or unable to begin a task because you are too busy trying to make sense of the chaos and clutter? Well you are definitely not the only one. Many of us are blessed enough to live in a time and economic climate that allows us to have overflowing closets, kitchen pantries that look like mini-marts, hobby equipment that take over garages, gigabytes turned into terabytes of digital data, and office files that make you think an entire forest was destroyed. With that being said its more important than ever that we learn to let things go! And once you decide what needs to stay it is critical to organize, organize, organize. Too many of us spend too much time and energy fidgeting through our own mess, that it ends up making a simple task take two or even three times longer. I want to share some broad tips with you today that will help you begin to declutter your life and ultimately decrease your stress. Over the upcoming months I will go into more detail on some of the following tips; please feel free to leave comments and messages on anything you would like me to discuss further, but for now start with the following:
1. Start with just 20 minutes a day, or one drawer, or one closet. (The choices are limitless).
2. Begin to group like things. i.e. There is no need for every bathroom in the house to have cleaning supplies tucked under the sink, in a linen closet, or laying around on the floor. Use a portable maid caddy and find one place to store all of your cleaning supplies.
3. Everything should have a place, and everyone in the house should know where its place is. Keeping a home or office organized requires a team effort and it also requires a “place” for everything.
4. In some cases it’s better to color coordinate then pair similar things. i.e. Closets and Shoes. Sometimes when you walk into a room, closet, etc. an aesthetically pleasing view can make all the difference.
5. Learn to reduce the waste, reuse or repurpose certain items, recycle what you can and sell when it’s an option. You will be surprised how much money you can bring in from utilizing eBay, craigslist, garage sales (online or on your front lawn). And there is always need for a good donation pile.